from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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from the work-from-home dept

I recently wrote about the somewhat hybrid physical office/virtual office we use here at Floor64, and how that's worked out well for us. Apparently, with the current financial crisis, a lot of companies are beginning to reassess whether they really need a physical office at all. A new study found that 43% of small and mid-sized businesses would consider going completely virtual in order to help deal with the current economy. Of course, the wording seems a bit weird. Why is it "would consider" rather than "are considering"? It's as if they weren't considering it at all, but suddenly thanks to this survey they admit they would consider it at some point in the future, thanks to the survey alerting them of the possibility. There may be issues involving long term leases and such, but it still seems odd to have companies say they would consider it in the future, but apparently aren't considering it now.

from the end-of-the-road dept

For a long time, Google insisted that it had no intention of competing directly against Microsoft in its core business areas, but as the company started to expand its online office suite, it became clear that the two companies would form a rivalry. That being said, few have argued that Google's office apps actually offer a substitute for MS Office (at least not yet), but rather that they work well in certain key areas. Nonetheless, one analyst is warning that deploying Google apps could be a potentially "career limiting" move for any enterprise architects. In other words, don't throw out your Office licenses just because you can save money going with Google. That might be good advice, except that it's basically just knocking down a straw man, as it's hard to imagine there are many people out there actually considering such a drastic course of action. What's funny is that the analyst then goes on to describe the 'limited' areas where Google's service might be useful; they include startups, small businesses, collaborative projects, and enterprise non-power users. It sure sounds like a large swath of the market could be well served by these tools by the analyst's own admission. Simply warning of dire consequences for anyone who puts too much confidence in Google doesn't really address the question.

from the that-took-some-time dept

Back in 2005, there was a lot of hype about a joint partnership between Google and Sun that turned out to be a big load of nothing. While there had been expectations that the companies would partner up to push Sun's StarOffice (an office suite based on OpenOffice), the announcement turned out to be nothing of the sort. As for StarOffice, they did mention that they might do something with it down the road, but that there hadn't been much thought put into it. Well, two years later, we're getting our answer. StarOffice is now available for free as part of Google Pack. Still, it seems unlikely that the move will do much to boost StarOffice. In the two years since the initial announcement, there's been a surge of interest in web-based applications, which will remain Google's priority. If there was ever a time for another offline office suite to steal significant share away from Microsoft, it would seem that time has passed.

from the another-delay dept

Microsoft has recently said that it has no plans to discontinue its tradition of large-scale, heavyweight software offerings, like Office and Windows. Seeing as these two franchises continue to be huge money makers for the company, its stance is understandable. But if it has no plans to change its business model, then it needs to fix the problems associated with its current one, such as long development times and quality control. So far, anyway, these problems don't seem to be going away. The company has announced that its forthcoming Office for Mac 2008 will be released late. The company had hoped to have it ready by the coming Christmas season, but it will now be released in 2008, which is appropriate, given the name. Despite their high profile, Macs still make up a small share of the overall computer market, so it's likely that Microsoft isn't devoting a tremendous amount of resources to this area. Still, the delay is indicative of the ongoing problems facing the company.